You’ve seen them — everywhere! — and often clustered together, as if central planners across America decided that what every city really needs is a Mattress District. There are now…
…the blog via feed, meanwhile, and prefer the old full feed to the current partial feed, won’t be receiving the outcome they wanted. After a lot of deliberation, here’s the…
…subscriptions did get properly redirected last week, you will probably be unhappy about losing the full feed. 3. The partial feed that the Times been offering since the move was…
Author and YouTuber John Green thought his breakout bestseller wouldn’t be a commercial success, wrote 40,000 words for one sentence, and brought Steve to tears.
We tend to look down on artists who can’t match their breakthrough success. Should we be celebrating them instead?…
…an author’s page, link my author’s page to my blog, upload a video, have my twitter feed in there, have a FAQ in there, and all the other basic tools…
Is there such a thing as a victimless crime? In an unfair system, is dishonesty okay? And are adolescent vandals out of ideas?…
…still work after Covid? In this installment of the Freakonomics Radio Book Club, guest host Kurt Andersen interviews Thomas Dyja, author of New York, New York, New York: Four Decades…
In this special episode of People I (Mostly) Admire, Steve Levitt talks to the best-selling author of Sapiens and Homo Deus about finding the profound in the obvious….
…Authors, on the other hand, always do worse. How much better for the publisher and how much worse for the author? Here are examples of author’s royalties compared to publisher’s…
Levitt rarely interviews advocates, but the founder of the Good Food Institute is different. Once an outspoken — and sometimes outlandish — animal-rights activist, Bruce has come to believe that…
Bren Smith, who grew up fishing and fighting, is now part of a movement that seeks to feed the planet while putting less environmental stress on it. He makes his…
…the biggest publishers in the U.S., and the authors she represents have sold more than 100 million books worldwide. Steve Levitt talks with Gluck — his own agent — about…
Before she decided to become a poker pro, Maria Konnikova didn’t know how many cards are in a deck. But she did have a Ph.D. in psychology, a brilliant coach…
…an astonishing 10,000 research papers were retracted. We talk to whistleblowers, reformers, and a co-author who got caught up in the chaos. (Part one of two-part series on academic fraud)…
…to the right of their pictures, the billboard will display the program’s live Twitter feed, nicely linking the broadcasters to the events they’re covering. One problem: apparently no one thought…
What surprises lurk in our sewage? How did racist city planners end up saving Black lives? Why does Arizona grow hay for cows in Saudi Arabia? Three strange stories about…
Our co-host is Grit author Angela Duckworth, and we learn fascinating, Freakonomical facts from a parade of guests. For instance: what we all get wrong about Darwin; what an iPod…
The comedian, actor — and now, author — answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.
Does the future of food lie in its past — or inside a tank of liquid nitrogen? Also: how anti-social can you be on a social network? This is a…
Last week we solicited your questions for Tim Groseclose, a political science professor at UCLA and author of the new book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American…
When your co-author is your colleague and also your significant other, confusion often follows. Take this recent post by Arnold Kling on the causes of inequality, where he says: I…
Critics — including President Obama — say short-term, high-interest loans are predatory, trapping borrowers in a cycle of debt. But some economists see them as a useful financial instrument for…
The author of Sapiens has a knack for finding the profound in the obvious. He tells Steve why money is fiction, traffic can be mind-blowing, and politicians have a right…
The comedian, actor — and now, author — answers our FREAK-quently Asked Questions.
…bathrooms, and city authorities continue to close the ones that do exist. Why are there no protests? The social pact is surely that citizens pay taxes and get essential services…
…what would become the Cold War. Certainly Wilson’s refusals to commit American troops to the anti-Bolshevik resistance, and the eventual dispatch of Herbert Hoover‘s food to feed the famine-ravaged stretches…
Nobel laureate, bestselling author, and groundbreaking psychologist Daniel Kahneman died in March. In 2021 he talked with Steve Levitt — his friend and former business partner — about his book…
…messy species and as such continue to offer psychology plenty of material to work with. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, co-author of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, and author…
Last week, we solicited your questions for Daniel Okrent, the author of Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. He has answered your questions with gusto. Big thanks to…
